yHEART PDX, Vol.II: Spatializing Intergenerational Experiences of Racial Exclusion/Inclusion + Health

Overview

yHEART—youth Health Equity and Action Research Training—trains youth residents of N/NE Portland as public health researchers, integrating social epidemiology and YPAR—and using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance research processes. The second yHEART PDX project examines experiences/perceptions of racial inclusion/exclusion and health.

In collaboration with Self Enhancement Inc. (SEI) in NE Portland, PSU Urban Planning professor Dr. Lisa Bates, and community artist and art professor Sharita Towne, the purpose of this study is to understand experiences of racial exclusion/inclusion (REI) and health among youth and adults of color in N/NE Portland. Youth researchers use three participatory methods to identify, characterize, and map place-based experiences and perceptions of REI and health. They are also “trained to train” and collect the same information from their parents/guardians. In this way, youth researchers are centered as their own PIs in an intergenerational exploration of REI and health in their communities. They then generate creative arts research products (based on their data) to use in a series of planned community exhibits/research dissemination events—using research and arts to recount, remix, and reimagine the placescapes of REI and health in Portland.

The goal of this project is to spatialize and narrate experiences/perceptions of REI and health—to uncover how racially exclusive and inclusive places differentially affect health and health opportunities. In other words, we want to collaboratively retrieve, remember, recover, and map out important “safe” and “healthy” spaces that are inclusive—e.g. places of love, remedy, resistance, and solidarity—and to identify “unsafe” and “unhealthy” spaces that are exclusive—e.g. places of hostility, surveillance, stress, and toxicity. And we want to generate local REI and health data that can be used to improve community REI experiences and health opportunities from an intergenerational perspective.